To Say It Would Be Death
by Lionheart Rising
Summary: The words are there, but she cannot say them.
1. To Say It Would Be Death

**Author's Note: ****A quick drabble that came to me. Will have a second part written from Bellamy's perspective. This is also on my tumblr (thenotcanadian) and on my AO3 account.**

She never says I love you. She can't. Somehow, those words always mean _the end_ and _I'm sorry_ and _please don't leave_. So she doesn't say them to Bellamy, and he doesn't ask her to. She likes to think that because he's her partner in all possible ways, he knows why, too.

She shows it in a million tiny gestures instead. _Her fingers tangling in his hair in the early morning. The soft smile on her face every time he comes back from patrolling and pulls her into his arms. The kisses she eagerly presses against his lips._ He's the lifeline that connects her to reality, because like she told Lexa, she is drowning in Grounder blood, soaked with it, and as Fi- as _he_ once told her, there are some things that are so hard to live with that you wonder if you're even you anymore with the weight of carrying them. Clarke carries a lot of things with her, and Bellamy is the only one who can help her bear the load.

Bellamy tethers her, anchors her. If she wakes up screaming because there are so many faces floating through her head, Bellamy is the one to hold her in his arms until she stops shaking and can go back to sleep. She loves him for this. But she also told another boy that she loved him right before she killed him, and so she can't tell the one man who keeps her whole just how much he means to her. The first time she tried, the words turned to ashes inside her mouth, ashes that choked the life out of her. She doesn't try anymore.

People used to comment on it, before the dead look in her eyes convinced them that doing so was a bad idea. Her mother, Raven, and Octavia have all asked why she doesn't say it, but she has no answers to give them. Her reasons are her own (she just can't tell them that everyone she ever said the words to have left her in some way or another). Her father, her mother, Wells, and then _him_. 3 dead, and one who for a while was as well, to her anyway. She can't add Bellamy Blake to that list.

So she doesn't say the words, and she hopes that he knows just how much he means to her. Because maybe one day the words won't taste like death and broken promises and abandonment. She'd really like for him to be around for that day.


	2. To Show It Would Be Life

**Author's Note: And here's Bellamy's end of things.**

She never says the words. But, if there is anything he's learned about Clarke Griffin since he's known her, it's that there is a reason for everything she does. And she wouldn't spend every night ensconced in his arms if she didn't want to be there. Bellamy doesn't blame her; he can figure out why the words never cross her lips for himself.

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, especially when he's woken up by her nightmares most nights. (He's got nightmares of his own, so he's not complaining about being awake instead of sleeping.) Sometimes she screams for her father, sometimes for Wells: time may have passed, but those are wounds that can never truly heal. Sometimes she pleads for Lexa to take her instead, sometimes for Finn to forgive her.

Before, he might have been bothered that someone else had the power to occupy the dreams of the woman he loves – the old, _whatever the hell we want_ Bellamy would have hated it. But the man he is now realizes that there's no victory in being the dead man, and dead is all that Finn is now.

And all of these people – her father, Wells, Finn – are why she never says the words. They're so simple, so small, but to Clarke they're like a death sentence. It's hard not to look at them like that when most of the people you've said them to are dead. Bellamy knows how that feels, to an extent. He's only ever said the words to two people, and his mother suffered the same fate as Clarke's father while Octavia might as well have been dead for all the life she had.

But he knows love is what he feels for her. There's no other word for the way that his heart leaps when she presses closer to him while they're sleeping in order to share some of his body heat, or the way he stares, slack-jawed, at her in the evening light with the setting sun shining through her hair. He loves her.

But he can't say the words either, knows doing so would only make her feel guilty and she's had more than enough of that for a lifetime. Nevertheless, he still tries to show her that she's special. _I need you, I want you, you're mine, Princess_. He doesn't say _love_, but damn if he doesn't pray for Clarke Griffin to use that amazing mind of hers to figure it out.

By the way she smiles at him every morning, or the way she can totally relax when they're alone together, he's guessing she gets it.


End file.
